Drip Marketing: Slow and Steady Wins the Customer

Drip Marketing: Slow and Steady Wins the Customer

Do it right and you can convert more leads. Do it wrong and your customer gets the water torture.

By Rick Cook | September 23, 2008

Drip marketing is the rather inelegant term for a marketing campaign that relies on repeated contact, or "touches," with a potential customer.

Unlike a leaky faucet, drip marketing is no accident. Successful drip marketing involves a carefully planned and thoughtfully targeted series of communications that will get your message across to customers and keep your company's name in their minds. As prospects move through the early stages of the sell cycle, drip marketing helps ensure that those potential customers become your actual customers.

Advantages

Building awareness is one of the most important advantages of drip marketing. It fixes your company name and message in the potential customer's mind.
Education is another important function. Drip marketing can inform prospects about your products and your industry by giving useful information while building trust in your company.

Who It's Good For

Drip marketing is ideal for high-value products with a long sell cycle, especially high-ticket items which are purchased at infrequent intervals. For example, mortgage companies and real estate agencies are big on drip marketing. So are health and life insurance agents. IT vendors whose products are purchased at infrequent intervals are also a rich market for drip marketers.
Drip marketing is especially effective if you have some insight into the prospect's buying cycle. Some kinds of goods, such as business computers and automobiles, tend to have a definite lifespan and are replaced every few years.

Aim Your Drips

Drip marketing needs careful planning for maximum effect. You must decide on a basic theme or themes that you want your campaign to drive home.
But the same message endlessly repeated loses effectiveness. Even though the themes remain the same, drip marketing requires variation in the way you present the message.

Kissing the Minimum Number of Frogs

On a percentage basis, drip marketing is not very efficient. It requires you to contact a number of people a number of times to drive sales. This doesn't mean drip marketing can't generate a lot of sales. Properly done, it can turn up many good prospects. But it does mean that you need to carefully focus your drip-marketing efforts. Paradoxically, while drip marketing uses mass-marketing techniques like email and direct mail, it becomes most effective when the messages are customized for specific audiences.

Once you've decided on your basic themes, you need to analyze your prospect list to determine which presentations are likely to be most effective with different groups. For example, a real estate agency will have some potential clients who are buying their first homes, some who are retiring and looking to downsize and some who are moving into the area. Each of these groups will benefit from a different approach. First-time buyers are likely to be interested in affordability. Older prospects looking to downsize will probably be more concerned about issues like tax implications and how to handle the sale of their existing home. By segmenting your prospects, you can provide them with the appropriate series of messages.

Drip Systems

Fortunately, drip marketing lends itself to a high degree of automation. Equally fortunately, there are a number of tools to help you run a drip-marketing campaign, or alternatively a number of companies who will run your campaign for you.
Many drip-marketing products are specialized for particular industries. For example Norvax Inc.'s
LeadMiner is designed for insurance agencies selling health insurance. Agent 360 from RENWare Inc. is designed for real estate agents. Other software programs, such as Swiftpage, are more general and will work for many kinds of businesses.

Beyond the industries they serve, drip products vary enormously in what they do. In fact, drip marketing is more a buzzword than a product description. One must look beyond the term to see what a product actually offers.

The most basic drip marketing products are email auto-responders. These simply send a reply, or a series of replies, to queries emailed to your business. Even within this category there is variation. Some of these products, like Swiftpage, automatically assemble a leads database in addition to sending out email messages. Others, such as TriggerTouch, will start with visitor information from your Web site. Most of these programs will send a series of messages, spaced over a period of weeks or months, in response to an initial query. In effect, they automatically launch a drip marketing campaign aimed at the potential customer. The more sophisticated programs allow you to vary the content of the messages as well as their timing depending on your evaluation of the contact. Some of them even have advanced features: LeadMiner can automatically generate current quotes to be included in the emails.

But drip marketing can be much more than just email. It can also include direct mail contact, newsletters, telephone calls or on-site visits. In fact, just about any form of customer communication can be integrated into a drip-marketing campaign. Some drip-marketing software will also automatically remind you to call the lead or send out mailings.

Some CRM programs, such as ACT4Advisors, which is built on Sage Software Inc.’s ACT! CRM program, come with features that let you set up a drip-marketing program. In the case of ACT! that includes a series of sample letters on various topics.

Finally, there are a number of companies that specialize in running drip-marketing campaigns, such as MyMarketingPartner Inc. They can help you create your message and analyze your prospects, and can provide you with prewritten or customizable materials aimed at the various target groups. You work out the basics and they do the rest.

Avoid the Spam Trap

Badly done drip marketing is Chinese water torture for prospects. They may remember you, but they're unlikely to deal with you. Bombarding prospects with uninteresting or irrelevant messages is a great way to end up being ignored. In this day of spam filters and floods of junk mail, it's all too easy to wind up as part of the background noise rather than a signal.

Email marketing is a particularly tricky business because of spam's current choke hold on email campaigns. In fact, most people who get a message from a company with whom they're not familiar are likely to assume it's spam.

Another problem with email marketing is that malicious emails have made people wary of opening attachments such as newsletters or reports.

The basic way around this problem is content combined with trust. To overcome the spam barrier you need an interesting message. You have to say something in which your potential customers are likely to be interested. Often that means giving them tips or other useful information.

Second, you need to build trust. Your prospects must trust you to give them something they want and not send them viruses. This is one limit for sending newsletters as attachments to emails.

Personalization also builds trust, both in your emails and in your company. As much as possible, include your prospects' names and other information — correct information — showing that they're not just a name on a mailing list. Also include information about who you are. For example, an email signed by the sales rep who will handle the account is more effective, especially if the email is from that rep's own email account.

Customizing on the Cheap

The big advantage of drip marketing is that it gives you a relatively low-cost, low-effort way of maintaining regular contact with leads who haven't yet made the critical buying decision. You can do this by other means, of course, but drip marketing lets you touch a lot more people effectively without wasting a lot of work. With drip marketing you can have more contact with more prospects without overloading your sales force or breaking your budget.

Courtesy:http://www.insidecrm.com/features/drip-marketing-092308/

Convert Prospects to Clients Through Drip Marketing

Convert Prospects to Clients Through Drip Marketing

 Posted in Campaigns, Email Marketing by Kristen Luke on July 5, 2009

 

In early June, an advisor who reads my blog sent me an email called “Sales Statistics.” It provided some interesting statistics about how many times one must contact a prospect before making a sale. Here is what the email said:

48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect.

25% of sales people make a second contact, then stop.

12% of sales people only make three contacts, then stop.

Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts.

2% of sales are made on the first contact.

3% of sales are made on the second contact.

5% of sales are made on the third contact.

10% of sales are made on the fourth contact.

80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

I don’t know the source of this information so I can’t verify its accuracy, but even if it is not completely accurate, it demonstrates a valuable point: You must regularly contact prospects if you wish to convert them to clients. Just as you should touch your clients 24 times in a year, you should touch your prospects 5 to 12 times. If only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts, you will obviously be at an advantage if you make more than three contacts. If 80% of sales are made on the 5^th to 12^th contact, the formula is simple – contact your prospects 12 times. Simple, right? And while this can be a time consuming process, if executed as a systematic drip campaign you’ll be able to touch your prospects 12 times without much additional effort on your part.
A drip campaign is a marketing campaign where an advisor or firm sends communication to a prospect on a regularly scheduled basis. There are several ways you can do this. If you already have a plan to touch your clients throughout the year, you can just add your prospects to the same schedule with a few modifications. For example, if you are already sending monthly or quarterly newsletters to your clients, you can add your prospects to the email or mailing list. If you host client educational seminars or webinars, invite your prospects to attend as well. If you send holiday cards, make sure your prospects are on the mailing list. By adding your prospects to the same communication program you have created for your clients, you’ll be able to touch your prospects five to twelve times in no time.
If you don’t have a communication calendar for your clients, or you want to reach out to your prospects in a different way than you do with your clients, you may want to consider setting up a drip email campaign. There are plenty of email services available that will let you set up automated email campaigns that will deliver messages to your prospects at regularly scheduled intervals. All you have to do is decide what kind of information you want to send to prospects and at what interval you want to send them and the system handles the rest for you. Aweber, iContact, Constant Contact and GetResponse all offer drip marketing services (also known as autoresponders).
Some advisors are uncomfortable with email marketing because of their own feelings about receiving marketing emails. If you fall into this category, you may want to try another approach using direct mail. There are services like Vertical Response and SendOutCards that allow you to create postcard or greeting card campaigns that can be created and sent directly from your computer. This is a more costly option than email but can still be a good alternative.
To get started on creating a drip marketing campaign, begin by pulling out a calendar and writing down the one way in which you will reach out to prospects each month. Educational information will always be more effective than sales messages, so focus on articles and events that bring value instead of advertisements. Also focus on relationship building activities such as birthday and holiday cards. You will find this is more successful than constantly reminding your prospect of the different services you offer.
The next step will be to make sure you implement the campaign as scheduled. Try to find automated systems that will market for you so that you don’t have to be involved. Finally, if a prospect doesn’t convert to a client after 12 touches, consider removing them from your list. If your drip campaign does not have much cost associated with it (e.g. email marketing), you can probably leave them on the list. But if there is a cost (e.g. direct mail), consider removing them from the campaign so that you don’t waste any more money.
Remember! You spent your valuable time meeting a prospect. Don’t let your efforts go to waste. Let your marketing help you efficiently convert your prospect to a client.
Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.WealthManagementMarketing.net.

The Formula to Convert Prospects to Clients in Today's Marketplace

by Lisa Mininni

- Thu, Jun 10 2010

In past years, the formula to convert prospects to clients involved a lot of networking, numerous meetings with a prospect, and follow up calls with him or her. Months, even years passed between your first meeting and enrolling them as a client into your programs, products, or services.

You work hard to gain visibility and connect with qualified new business leads. Yet, most solopreneurs and small business owners spend too much time talking to people who are not their preferred clients. They waste this time because they don’t have a clear plan, they haven’t precisely identified their preferred client, and most of all, they don’t systematize their marketing or have systems that help to pre-educate and pre-qualify prospects as well as help prospects self select into their programs and services. Entrepreneurs then wonder why they don’t have more prospects converting into clients.

The present-day consumer is experienced, well informed and has a lengthy list of high expectations. Consumers are accustomed to self-service based on volumes of readily-available information. Word of mouth travels quicker than you can say world wide web.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realize the changing consumer landscape and research shows that upwards of 80% of business owners do not even know their conversion rates. How do you improve your system or site’s improvement? What do you do when you have visitors but few of them take the desired action? How do your visitors know the next step to doing business with you?

These and other questions can easily be answered if there is a regular and consistent plan that includes conversion tracking and monitoring. Conversion takes on a number of actions and can include:

•Subscribing to your newsletter or ezine

•Participating in a survey or answering questions

•Downloading a software or ebook

•Clicking on a link or page

•Going through the process (that is, clicking on certain pages) before clicking on the buy now button

•Product or Service Sales

Regardless of how long you’ve been in business, you need to know your conversion rates and, most importantly, understand how prospects find you, choose you and buy from you.

One thing hasn’t changed in the conversion process and that is building relationships and trust. There are more choices than ever for small business owners but it is vital to have a conversion plan that is consistent with your mission, values and purpose. While the internet provides leverage and business owners have more opportunities to promote their services, many entrepreneurs still struggle by using outdated marketing and selling techniques. They haven’t fully integrated or even started a social media strategy and aren’t sure how to integrate these communities so that their customers find them.

It’s incredibly easy, but can be overwhelming, with how to attract more clients. Like any outcome, you have to have the right formula that mixes well with what you want to accomplish. In an effective formula to enroll clients, you create what matters most: relationships, trust and choices. Today’s savvy entrepreneur realizes they must provide a balance of choices in their products and services and customers expect it and will choose you because of it.

When you’re clear about your market and how they find you, choose you, and buy from you, your marketing and systems become more refined and support the enrollment (or conversion) process. A well thought-out conversion plan involves:

One Part Skill + One Part System = Enrolling Clients

One Part Skill

The most effective way to turn a prospect into a client is to simply think about how you think of them and what you think of the selling process. While marketing is communicating what you do, which will generate prospects, the sales process is about enrolling prospects into clients. The key to any successful formula is to implement effective strategies that fit your values and personality. Many entrepreneurs resist the selling process which becomes an obstacle to getting clients because they are stuck in push marketing and go into sell mode.

The reason most business owners and solopreneurs feel like they are selling is because they often don’t have an effective strategy, system, and they use outdated selling techniques. Authentically enrolling prospects is about being in a place of service, building the relationship and finding what’s most important to the prospect.

Key skills include listening, recommending, understanding human behavior, and providing solutions. When you listen to your prospects, understand the human element, provide value, and suggest resources, the outcome of your generosity can be dramatic. They will no longer consider you as a sales person rather a trusted source and important person to know. After all, people will end up doing business with people they know, like and trust.

One Part System

Conversions also happen when your system is set up to leverage today’s marketplace and addresses the educated consumer. When you set up a pull marketing strategy and implement systems to support that strategy, the consumer requests the product or service not you having to push the products.

Gone are the days of static websites. A good conversion system involves:

•The use of enhanced tools. Tools including video, lead generation and other digital media to create compelling experiences for this empowered consumer.

•A good social media strategy directly targeting your preferred client. Present-day consumers are tapping into a social media platforms. Researchers estimate 70 percent of consumers read blogs on a regular basis and even more are part of a social online community. They are experiencing more video and niche content. Savvy entrepreneurs are realizing their systems must include more than just a stand-alone website to connect with preferred clients in their desired niche.

•A robust pull marketing system going beyond a static website. A website plays a much less central role in today's market place than it did in the past but is still a part of the process. A robust pull marketing system takes into consideration how people search for solutions (and how they’ll find you using them), such as advertising, search engines, social media sites and the blogsphere. With these systems you need to make sure it helps your prospects pre-educate, pre-qualify, and self-select into your programs and services.

•Automated lead generation systems. Lead generation systems (or permission-based marketing systems) help your ideal prospects find you and is often that first stage in the relationship. When they find you, your systems should help educate, provide value to them, and be clear so they know the next steps in doing business with you.

•Stay-in-touch vehicles. Since only 4% of people will want to buy from you after the first encounter with you, you must have stay-in-touch vehicles that allow you to develop the relationship with the prospect and provide high content information, fostering the trust factor.

•A specific order. Your systems must also be in an order that leads your prospects and provides value. Enough information should be given so you’re reversing the sales process. When you provide content and information on benefits, products/services and create consistency in your marketing (which creates trust over time) then your prospect is choosing to do business with you, helping reverse the sales process, leaving you free from selling. When you set up this system in a particular order it creates a system ripe for enrolling (or converting) prospects to clients.

A well-developed conversion formula includes both skill and a system that takes into consideration the entire business and provides an experience for the empowered consumer while leveraging technological advancements. Take the first step by assessing your current skills and systems to make sure you are creating an environment suitable for conversion.

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Lisa Mininni is President of Excellerate Associates, home of The Entrepreneurial Edge System, the only national curriculum for entrepreneurs taking them step-by-step through a systems approach to profitability.

For a free teleseminar on getting all the clients you need, visit http://www.freebusinessplanformat.com/getalltheclientsyouneed.

For more information on how your clients find you, choose you, and buy from you, visit http://www.freebusinessplanformat.com.